It was the warmth of the sun as the streams of light hit me which woke me in the morning. I stirred, arms wrapped around my comfortable pillow, and then paused at that thought. I opened my eyes then sighed in annoyance as I shoved Taryn away from me. I glanced at the heavens and noted the positioning of the sun, which was still mostly obscured by foliage to the east.

The day had already started off on the wrong foot due to Taryn, or at least that was how I felt. I stood up, stretched and began to take in the surroundings as quickly as was possible. On the eastern horizon the half-obscured sun was welcoming the day with a cheery face and brilliant colors, while nothing to the north and south had changed from the day prior. The smoke I had seen to the west had stopped at some point, so there was a chance it was a potential hallucination on my part.

My fire had smoldered and grown almost non-existent, which had lead to an increasingly colder and colder night. I ignored the remains of the fire, as I had no interest in sticking around in this area for much longer. Instead I turned my attention to the helpless oaf who was Taryn.

He laid there, unmoving save for the rise and fall of his chest. Clearly he was breathing, and as I checked his pulse I found it to be satisfactory. I poked at him, attempted to tickle him and even pinched his nose for a short moment. Nothing seemed to waken him from the slumber he was locked in.

The first thing I dealt with was my natural duty to nature, and after that I washed my hands and ran some water over my face. I studied the changes in my features again, that odd crimson sliver in the eye along with the silver streak in the black hair. Neither of them made sense, and seemed to correlate to something that was done by Her or by Taryn.

In either case I could only shrug my shoulders and return to getting along with life. To ponder too long would get me nowhere, and so I decided to acquire some food. My upset stomach demanded to be fed, and I recalled from the previous evening the location of some bushes of berries and nuts.

However I had no container, and so I walked over to the drying clothes and began to tear apart the pants of Taryn. I did not remove them entirely, instead the pants that he had used for so long were converted into shorts. With some careful weaving I created a very basic pouch, and then I put it to the side.

I then spent the next bit of time working on clothing Taryn, I did not need to see his naked body anymore. Once more I shall avoid talking about my thoughts and feelings in regard to that scenario, though after he was dressed I clothed myself. All I had on me was my underwear, while Taryn at least had underwear plus some scraps one could call shorts.

Both of us were dressed in rough bandages, they covered our major wounds and had helped stave off imminent death via blood loss. Oddly enough I was already able to start removing some of mine, though with a wince as certain wounds had not fully healed. The long wound down my left arm had stopped bleeding, and looked to be well on the way to scarring.

I picked up my little pouch and headed off into the forest, my bracelets on my left wrist clinking together musically with each step. As I walked through the forest I encountered no animals save for a sparrow or two, and the overall ambiance of the place remained peaceful.

One might think that a forest in the middle of nowhere is quiet, but that is the wrong belief. A forest is alive, even as I walked through it the sound of birds and critters moving around was ever present. Every so often I even stopped, frozen and alert, at the sound of bushes rustling from a fox or other animal darting away from me.

By the time I reached the berries I had already become stressed by the continual potential for death that I felt was coming. Thankfully as I scavenged nothing leapt out and murdered me, and the air itself had an overall peaceful feel to it. I even munched on some berries while in the midst of acquiring my goods, popping them in my mouth and enjoying the taste.

I emerged from the forest a short while later, back at the campsite once more. Taryn had not moved from where I had left him although he had acquired a few visitors. Two birds, small and curious about who or what he was had settled onto a log. I shooed them away, mostly out of concern that they might decide to start building a nest on his head.

I left the pouch of food on Taryn's chest, then went and picked up the litter. I had scouted the stream while bathing in it the night before and had located a somewhat shallower area that only reached up to my shin. I carried the litter over the stream, then left it on the farside of the stream.

I stopped at the water in order to gorge on it. An old tip Sciroco had given me while training my survival skills, when in a low food scenario using excessive water can trick your stomach. So I drank, then drank more, and finally stopped before bursting. I almost felt like I sloshed as I walked over to where Taryn was and scooped him up.

I carried him like he had carried me that one night, over the shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I felt there was a certain sense of justice to it as I stepped back over the stream and then placed him gently on the litter. The fact that I could have roughly tossed him onto the litter came to mind after I had laid him out so carefully.

I sighed. "Whatever," I said to nobody, before I stepped in front of the litter and then once again began my journey to the west. By the time I started out the sun had already reached halfway to noon, so I surmised I had plenty of time to reach whatever had created the smoke from the previous night.

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Plenty of time? No, more like barely made it in time. As I crested a hill with the sun sinking steadily onto the horizon I almost shouted for joy. There in front of me rested a small wooden house with a solitary chimney, a field that had some type of vegetables growing in it along with a barn or storehouse directly next to the field.

I bounded down the hill initially, so energized and excited by coming across a house that I lost myself. I dragged poor Taryn down that hill like he was a doll, he bounced on the litter and almost fell off numerous times, saved only by some stroke of luck I could call fate.

Yet halfway down the slope, as smoke started to come from out of the chimney and the lights inside the house flared into life, I began to realize that caution might be a necessity. I was a half-naked woman with a half-dead man, and I had no visible weapons.

For the most part people in the Empire are friendly, especially the solitary farmers. They tend to spend most of their free time working on the soil and rarely waste time harming others. When they have time they often head into the nearest village or town and get drunk with their friends, flirt with the local women and attempt to make children.

I decided to study the terrain a bit more so I slowed my approach, quietened my steps and tried a bit for stealth. The farmhouse itself was nondescript, wooden in construct with a stone chimney. A wooden fence stretched out around the house, the field and the storehouse, almost like a wooden wall rather than a fence. Obviously they had constructed it to keep critters from easily accessing the interior of the farm.

The gate was simple, as I crept up to it I noted that it had a simple wooden latch and the hinges in turn were also wood. While I favored metal hinges, in this case I was happy as when crafted from wood they would make no noise as I opened the gate.

With one hand I opened the gate, then I slipped in with the litter and closed the gate. On the inside of the farm I was able to see a variety of bushes, some of which were flowers and others which were berries. I dragged the litter over to the nearest cluster of bushes, then I left it there while I approached the house.

From the inside I could hear three masculine voices and a single female voice. The men were laughing, obnoxiously, while the woman seemed to be crying more so than anything else. I heard comments that involved slaves, wenches and how many times could they do something before something.

I purposefully am not explaining what those words are for the children in the audience. I'm sure the adults know what I'm talking about.

It was a bad situation based on what I had heard, and as I walked up to the door I already had a measure of regret over what I was about to do. I reached out and rapped on the door, waited a moment and then repeated my previous action.

The men grew quiet, and then one barked at the woman to open the door. Nothing dumb, he said, nothing dumb or else he'd teach her how long he could go for. I gritted my teeth at that, then as the door started to open I attempted to adjust myself to look as relaxed as possible. I assumed an aura of one who does not care that they're naked, I produced my breasts in front of me in a fetching manner that would make any man stop and drool.

The door opened and the girl in front of me could only look in shock, while the men behind her all started to whisper to one another. Nymph one said, goddess another and the final one mentioned something about a slut of the wild. I marked that one mentally, he had a mustache and short cut hair.

The girl, for she was even younger than I and could not be a woman, wore clothes that could only be called at the peasant level of wealth. Her dress was long enough to reach her knees, yet had been creased and ruined with minor rips here and there. Her dirty blond hair had been pulled up underneath a handkerchief, brown colored, while her blue eyes darted left and right in confusion. What I noticed most of all, however, was the collar around her neck. A slave collar, one that had recently been placed given the blood visible as it dripped away from under it.

I smiled at the girl, who in turn looked at me with wide eyes that held both fear and desperation in them. She motioned with her hand which the men could not see, while she mouthed the word 'run'. I shook my head gently, then casually pushed past her into the interior of the house. "Looks like a nice place," I commented in a calm tone of voice that surprised even me.

The inside of the house was not too complex, along the right rested the fireplace which crackled and illuminated most of the room. A couch hugged the wall on the left, a small bookcase was tucked into a corner. Mustache had seated himself on the far side of the room at a dining table, fork in one hand while food rested in front of him on the table itself.

On the couch sat Skinny, as I opted to call him mentally. He was thin as a rail, tall and had some wicked looking knife twirling in his hand. He flashed a grin at me, with one eye milky white and ugly. The third man was at the table with Mustache, his arms thick with muscles and his overall height impressive. A large sword sat near him, I would surmise a type of broadsword, while he casually ate a chunk of meat with savage noise and a lack of manners.

I leaned forward, and began to study the rest of the room. To the immediate left was a door which stood open, I could see a small bed inside along with a dresser that had been knocked over. The sheets were crumpled and the overall look of the place was depressing. To the left of the dining table was another door, one that was closed and most likely lead to another bedroom.

"Like what you see?" I asked of the men in front of me, as I clasped my bra-covered breasts and pushed them up and closer to one another.

The response was immediate, all three started to stand up while breathing heavier. I could already tell that Skinny was a bit too eager, he had bulged in a way that made it obvious of what he wanted. As he stepped toward me the other two shouted at him, they didn't want him getting to me first.

Skinny turned away from me for a second to address his comrades, and I capitulated on his error. I leapt forward and gripped onto his left arm, then easily snapped it like the twig that it was. He screamed in pain at that, but I didn't surrender to his cries for mercy as I yanked him down toward the ground and rammed my knee into his face.

Muscles and Mustache realized in no time at all that I was no mere nymph of the forest, and they pulled out their weapons. With the drawing of weapons I felt it was time to pull out my own, and so I snapped my fingers and visualized what weapon I wanted. It felt odd again, which is hard to explain. It was like instead of a lemon I had encountered a lemon with a hint of orange in it.

It was not only the two remaining slavers but also myself who stared at the short sword I now grasped in my right hand. The silver that was normally visible rested in it, but now a vein of scarlet ran from the handle all the way to the tip of the blade. Like a line of blood that had permanently stained it.

I had no time to think about the significance of that, as Muscles charged at me with his mighty sword. He brought it in from the right side, a massive swing of metal and power which would easily blow me away from the sheer force. I lifted my sword and braced for the impact, only to be utterly shocked when I didn't even move an inch.

Muscles in turn staggered away, as though all the power he had unloaded turned back on him. He stared at me with wild eyes while Mustache came in with an axe. An overhead chop that aimed to cut into my left shoulder, fast and deadly enough that I would fail to dodge it in time.

Yet as my blood pumped and roared in my ears I felt like his axe came far too slow, and slipped in close to him. Before he could even realize I was there I had already driven my sword directly into the target I had aimed for from the start. As he yelled in horror at what had been done to him I twirled, a flourish of metal which sent the head on his shoulders flying.

"What the hell are you?" Muscles asked before he turned and charged toward the closed door. He hit it hard with his left shoulder and burst through even as I started to chase after him. If he had a hostage in there I'd be in trouble, and if he escaped out a window and acquired some friends it'd definitely be a problem.

He was so very slow, I caught up to him without even trying like a bolt of lightning. He turned at the sound of my impending approach and staggered away in fright. His broadsword waved wildly, while he collapsed onto the ground in front of a full body mirror.

I knocked the sword aside with a flick of my sword, and then stepped in with a thrust to his chest. Blood welled out of his mouth, he gurgled and then went limp while I withdrew my sword. I had figured I would have felt horrible at this, at murdering people..

The only idea I could think was that through butchering all of those Plague I had started to grow dull to the sensation of killing. It was like a crucible I had been forced through, one that I should not have survived. I clicked my tongue at that though, and then took a step back and lifted my gaze. I almost gasped at what I saw in front of me, cast in that mirror.

My left eye had turned entirely crimson.